


In Thunder, Lightning, or in Rain

by nebulia



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Anal Sex, Basically Rook talks like himself, Explicit Language, Light Bondage, M/M, Not-totally-graphic violence, Oral Sex, POV First Person, Prostitution, Racism, Rough Sex, Sexism, Sibling Incest, True Love, Unsafe Sex, in fact rook's POV should be a warning by itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:03:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulia/pseuds/nebulia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt at the first havemercy <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/thremedon/70195.html?thread=1864243#t1864243">kink meme</a>: Rook/Thom, Modern!AU  Rook is super rich (reason is up to you) and has a pet hawk named Havemercy. They go for walks everyday (again, reason up to you. Is Rook secretly a taking-walks kinda guy? Maybe he likes to glare at small children?) and take the same route. One day Have, who tries to bite the fingers off anyone but him, flies over to a brunette, bespectacled artist in some place (park? coffee shop? garbage can?) and hangs out with him. Rook is not amused.</p><p>Title comes from macbeth: "when shall we three meet again/ in thunder, lightning, or in rain?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As far as warnings go, look at the tags. It's from Rook's POV, so expect his level of misogyny, homophobic language, racism, and general emotionally constipated bullshit. 
> 
> Beautiful, beautiful fanart of Rook and hawk!Havemercy by ebonykat can be found [here](http://thremedon.livejournal.com/164445.html).

Sometimes life works out really fucking weird.

After I got back from the war, I had shit-nothing. I mean, I'd gotten paid, but most of it ended up going to medical bills and the apartment I had for a few months after getting out of the hospital. I wasn't smart, I'd barely fucking graduated from high school, and I'd only ever been really good at killing people, but what good was that with the war over?

So there I was, twenty years old and almost homeless. 

I started turning tricks, 'cause sucking cock might have been close to the most fucking awful thing ever but at least it paid pretty well. If you were in the right part of town it was twenty bucks a blowjob, and I could make a decent amount of money a night if I worked at it. 

So I had a little extra one day and went into a corner store to get a sandwich, and the TV said some shit about it being the highest jackpot in the history of the state lottery. 

What the hell, I thought, I have a couple extra bucks, and bought myself a ticket. 

I won. 

Got myself a nice penthouse apartment, went out a bought a couple of high-class whores and paid _them_ , for a change, and then I had more money than bastion and no idea what the fuck to do with it. 

People sucked, so I decided that other than the occasional whore, cleaning people and the cook who lived on the floor below me and only bothered me when I didn't want a sandwich, I didn't really need them. I did get in contact with my old squad, met the survivors for dinner a few times, and that was when Balfour mentioned that his older brother, also a vet like us, had a pet store for exotic pets. 

"He has a hawk he can't get rid of," Balfour said, fiddling with the knife and fork he'd attached to his fake hands. I kind of hated Balfour sometimes 'cause he was a pissy little bitch but he'd proved himself pretty fucking well in that last battle and so I respected him a little, at least enough to let him talk about something that wasn't the war. "She's pretty vicious, I guess. Hates everyone." He nibbled at his steak. 

Something in me kind of clicked. 

So I went to Amery's pet store the next day. Amery was kind of an asshole, I noticed right away. 

I noticed the hawk right after. She was beautiful, big even for a red-tailed hawk and her feathers were well-kept and glowing. She had sharp golden eyes, eyes that were smarter than they should have been for some dumb animal, and her claws flexed on the branch she was sitting on when she saw me. 

I'm not ashamed to say I fell in love with her right away. Amery said she was named Havemercy by her previous owner, but, he added, "She's got none that I've ever seen." He stretched his hand to her, slowly, nonthreatening, and she snapped at it and looked smug. He snorted. "She's not threatened, she just doesn't like anyone." 

I stepped forward and looked at her. She looked back at me. I lifted a hand and her eyes followed it but she didn't go for it, not even when my hand touched the bars of the cage. She looked at me, almost annoyed but even more smug, like she was saying, "What did you expect? That I was gonna bite your fucking hand off? And if you don't stop looking at me like that, I damn well _will_."

She was just like me. 

"I'll take her," I said. 

\--

So me and Have, who was almost two when I got her, we were like two peas in a pod. I left her at home one day and went to library to do research--I hadn't ever been to a fucking library before and I never wanted to go back again--and found out all sorts of shit, like how red-tailed hawks were monogamous and lived to be about twenty years old and it was their cry that everyone was familiar with, in movies and shit, though people usually said it was an eagle 'cause that was more dramatic. 

I figured me and Have were kind of like mates, in a way, 'cept for the sex thing. But she was the only company I needed, really. I could have gone without whores if I'd had to pick between them and Have. 

We went for a walk every fucking day 'cause the park was nearby and we both liked outside. Usually she just sat on my shoulder, unless she saw something interesting and flew off, but she always came back. Sometimes she brought rabbits or mice or squirrels, and I gave the rabbits to the cook to make for dinner but Have just ate the squirrels and mice. She let me feed her, but she could have taken care of herself, and she damn well made sure I knew it. 

We would talk past the playground at the park and into the woods and just wander. I was a multi-millionaire, it wasn't like I had nothing to do, so we glared at the little kids as we walked past the playground and once no one else was around we basked in the sun, just a little, and wandered through the woods, even though the sign said to stay on the path. 

On our way home we usually stopped at a stand that sold meat buns, which were from fucking Ke-Han, but they were fucking delicious so I just tried not to think about where they came from or that bitch who ran the stand and her heavily-accented Volstovic. Mostly that accent reminded me of the war and the camp and the torture, but Have was there with me and the woman was perfectly nice, I guess, even if she was fucking Ke-Han, so what could I do, really? 

At night we watched TV, sports usually, but only the really vicious ones, professional hockey and rugby and boxing or UFC if it was on. Some nights if I felt like starting a fight or actually picking up a girl, not just calling a whore, I actually went out, and got drunk with other people--every once in a while the squad, 'cause Balfour might have been no fun drunk but everyone else was okay, at least at this point in time seven, eight years after the war. 

So we walked in the mornings, around ten-thirty, if it had been an early night, and two-thirty if it had been late. In the afternoons I taught hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting at this studio place that did all kinds of martial arts, 'cause I'd started to get real fucking bored with doing nothing, even if I was doing nothing with Havemercy. It was a schedule, which usually I hated, but it was my fucking schedule, mine and Have's, and it was easy and pointless and we only kept to it when we wanted to. 

So we walked while most of the kids were in school and the adults were at work, so usually the park was empty, even the tables by the fucking Ke-Han meat bun stand. 

So it was really fucking weird when one morning this dirty kid with broken glasses was sitting on a table next to the stand, speaking fucking Ke-Han to the bitch who ran the stand and drawing or some shit. 

I would have ignored him, and probably gone to the other side of the road just in case Havemercy decided she _really_ didn't like that one and she was going to go bite his fucking fingers off (I'd had to deal with that enough already when Luvander or Ghislain or Adamo and Balfour came over the apartment, and now she tolerated them (sort of, she didn't really like Balfour, which made plenty of sense since _I_ didn't like Balfour) and the cook and the meat bun lady and me and that was it), but Have jumped off my shoulder as we got near the stand and landed on the table next to him and just _stood_ there. 

"Oh, hello," the kid said in Volstovic to Have, who just sort of tipped her head like she was saying fucking hello. "Who are you?"

Have pecked his hand, but lightly, not enough to draw blood, and she wasn't going for his fingers. 

What the _fuck_?

"Well, yes, I gathered that you belonged to _someone_ ," the kid said. "I just was wondering--ow!"

Have'd just pecked him again, a little harder, and the kid grabbed his hand. A drop of blood welled up just below his first knuckle. 

"She don't belong to no one," I said, striding forward. "But she stays with me."

The kid was a few years younger than me, messy brown hair, and green eyes behind his glasses. The nosepiece was held together with some tape and his clothes were covered in paint. He honestly looked fucking pathetic. 

The kid flushed a little, and shoved his glasses up his face nervously, and said, "She's beautiful. Red-tailed hawk?"

I nodded, still glaring. 

He offered me a slight smile. "She's very smart. I mean, red-tailed hawks are intelligent, but she's very smart even for that." 

"I know," I said shortly. "And she don't like people." 

Have hopped over to stand between me and the kid and gave me a Look. It said, "I like who I want to, you fucking asshole, don't tell me what to do." 

"Him?" I said, glancing at the kid. He was too skinny and flushing and looked like a fucking wimp, even more so than Balfour. At least Balfour could do crazy shit with a AK-47 even while there were tendons hanging out of his bleeding hands. But the kid looked like he'd grown up in Molly, honestly, except for the wimp part. That weren't a Molly thing. Mollyrats tended to fight back. 

If she'd been a person, she'd have lifted an eyebrow, and she turned around and strode over next to him. 

"Sorry about that," the kid said, gesturing to the bleeding wound in his hand. "I just assumed..."

Have did the thing where she leaned forward and looked threatening. The kid trailed off, watching her for a moment warily. Something in his eyes was odd, almost fierce, like he was getting ready to fight or run. Maybe he was a mollyrat, just a shitty one.

Have stood back up, and bobbed her head intently.

"What am I drawing?" the kid said, pushing his glasses up his nose again. "Oh, well, I'm just doing some perspective work, and those two trees with the playground in between make a really good picture to work on perspective." He talked to Have like I did, like she was a person, and Have seemed to be talking back. 

Bastion _fuck_. What a fucking bitch. I tapped the table impatiently. "Have, time to go."

Have glanced at me, her eyes very clearly saying, "Where the fuck do we need to go?"

I rolled my eyes, ordered two meat buns from the fucking Ke-Han bitch, and held out my arm. " _Have_." 

She hopped irritably, and then flew up to my shoulder. 

"Hang on," the kid said, jumping off the table with a clatter. "I'm Thom. Will you be here tomorrow?"

"Fuck off," I said venomously, and walked away. 

Have was giving me another Look, and I didn't have to glance at her to know what it said. It said, "You're _jealous_!" and was viciously gleeful. 

"Like fuck I am," I muttered. 

Have squeezed her talons into my shoulder in a move that clearly said, "You're a fucking _liar_."

Fuck that. The kid--what the fuck was his name, Thom?--wasn't a fucking threat at all. It's not like he would be there anyway, since I was always at the meat bun stand at the same time and he had never been there before. And given how much of a pussy he had been, my parting shot had definitely been enough to keep him away. 

It had always been just me and Have, and like _fuck_ was that going to change. 

\--

Then life threw me for a fucking loop. 

The kid was there the next day, when I came by to get my meat bun. Sitting on the same table, and intensely focused on his perspective shit or whatever the fuck he was doing. He might have completely ignored me, except Have gave a quiet little squawk and hopped off my arm and onto his table, moving over to him and butting her head against his elbow before pecking him. 

He jerked up at that, letting out a little squeak and swinging his arm around in a move that seemed almost defensive. Have jumped out of the way and squawked at him again, still pretty quiet. 

"Oh. Oh, hello, Have, was it?"

"Havemercy," I said sharply, and the kid looked up at me and shrunk back slightly. He was scared of me. That was good.

Then he quirked an eyebrow and glanced back at Havemercy. "Havemercy, huh? Pretty ironic name." 

Have ruffled her feathers proudly, and the kid laughed. He was wearing a paint-stained 'Versity sweatshirt, and a pair of ratty corduroys. I was pretty sure he'd had the same ones on yesterday.

"You go to the 'Versity?" I said blandly. He flinched when I started speaking, and I thought this could be fun, scaring the shit out of him. 

"Y-yeah," he said, not looking at me. Have was looking at me, and I couldn't tell what she was saying, if it was "cut it out, don't be such an asshole, he's already aware of that fact," or "cut it out, you don't know what you're getting into," because she seemed amused at the same time. 

Women. 

I put my hand on the table and leaned into him. "What're you studying?" 

"Um. Double-majoring, in studio art and literature."

"So, smart 'Versity kid, with broken glasses and shitty clothes. What, did your parents find out you were a cindy and throw you out on your ass, but then realized disowning you would humiliate them so they keep paying tuition?"

The kid flushed brilliantly with anger and snapped, "For your information, I have a full-ride scholarship on merit alone," and then all the color drained from his face and I grinned. 

"Huh. Look, I didn't go to the 'Versity and I don't give a flying fuck about school, but everyone knows only kids from Molly and Mollyedge get scholarships, merit or not." My grin widened, and I leaned in further. " _And_ everyone knows that if the rich Miranda shits find out a kid's from Molly, they're avoided like they've caught something from a low-priced whore." The kid went even whiter. I laughed. "Bet you keep that a fucking secret, don't you."

The kid stared at me with big fucking scared eyes and quivering lips for a long moment, and then those green eyes narrowed and he reeled back and slugged me in the face. 

\--

The kid had huge hands for being as skinny as he was. Physically, other than the thin thing, he was pretty average, a little shorter than me, and his hands had always been clenched around a pencil, so maybe I just hadn't thought about that, but when his fist slammed into my nose I really noticed how fucking huge his hands were. 

There was a crunch and I fell back, landing on my ass. Have flew down to the concrete to look at me. My nose was bleeding. 

The little shit!

 _"Hey!_ Hey, hey, hey, if you gon' fight, do it away from my stand."

The kid was looking at his hand, and then turned red and bowed, apologizing profusely to the Ke-Han bitch who ran the stand. Then he turned around and looked at me. 

"I know who you are," he said. "I realized it when I walked by the statues near the 'Versity. You're from the Dragon Corps. Rook. Your squad saved the whole country."

I stood up. Fucker had broke my nose, and I closed my eyes and wrenched it back into place. "So?"

He handed me some napkins to staunch my bloody nose. "Everyone knows you. You're from Molly, too. You went to my high school."

It was a shitty high school, too. Place was falling apart, it was next door to a condemned former whorehouse and a burnt-out building (that I'd lived in, 'fore it burnt down), teachers didn't give a fuck, students cared even less. I skipped class most of the time, and still passed, barely. It was in the worst part of Molly, and the year I was a senior, there had been two separate lockdowns 'cause some idiot had brought a gun to school and started shooting shit. 

The kid had to be real smart, then, to be able to graduate from Tuesday Street Senior High and get into the 'Versity full-ride. 

He shrugged. "Look, I didn't talk to you, your hawk came to me first. And you're not any better than I am, so stop acting like you are."

"I'm a fucking war hero."

"Yeah, and you're an asshole." He picked up his sketchbook and looked back at me, his lips pursed disapprovingly. He had cocksucking lips, I realized. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Havemercy." He offered her a hand and she pecked at it, lightly. "Sorry for punching your pet."

I looked at him. "The _fuck_?"

He smirked, and it was a look that for some reason reminded me of my asshole father when he was sober and in a good mood (though that was rare). "She 'don't belong to no one,' right? So you must belong to her."

He bought a meat bun and left. 

I looked at Have and she looked back. 

"Fucker's actually sort of right," I told her, my voice muffled by the napkins pressed to my nose. I was perfectly aware of who owned who in this relationship, and what little heart I had belonged to Have. 

"He is _completely_ right," Havemercy's face said, and I sighed.

Why hadn't I beat the shit out of him? He'd _punched_ me. He'd broken my fucking nose, called me a bastion-damned asshole and I'd just stared at him!

Fuck, I was getting soft. 

_Fuck._

\--

The damn kid was there the next day, and the next, and the day after that, always in shitty clothes with those broken glasses and intently drawing. I ignored him, or tried to, because like hell was I going to change my daily routine for some fucking 'Versity shit who'd slugged me in the face once. 

But Have continued to like him, and fly off my shoulder to land on his. She always came back, of course--after all, she was my better half, or at least as close to a better half as I'd likely ever get--but he fucking _interested_ her, and he wasn't something she was going to kill and bring back to me like a prize or a gift, and that was damn well enough for me to hate him. 

I bitched at her whenever we got home, and she ignored me. She hung out with whoever the fuck she wanted to, and I knew that as well as she did. She just liked me well enough. 

Bitch. 

So the kid and I talked sometimes, always hostile. I never got close enough for him to hit me again, because it wasn't gonna shock me the next time and I'd be as like to kill him as to beat him up, and the fucking Ke-Han bitch wasn't gonna have any fights near her stand anyway, or so she told us every fucking day. 

One day he had a book instead, and he told me and Have that he'd finished his perspective project and had to finish this book for class so he wouldn't be much good company. I didn't give a shit, bought a meat bun, and waved for Have so we could just keep walking, but she didn't budge from his fucking side. 

" _Havemercy,_ " I said, and she gave me a Look and turned back to the kid, nudging the book with her beak.

"Hm? Oh, I'm reading a collection of legends on Tycho the Brave. I've got a paper comparing the legends and the socio-economic classes they come from."

"The fuck?" I said, and Have looked nearly as confused as me, which was a little hilarious. She was fucking smart and always acted like she knew fucking everything. 

The kid pushed up his glasses and glanced at me, warily, and then at Have, less so. I bared my teeth in a grin. He was still scared of me, and that was a fucking good thing.

"Well," he said, "For example, the legend of him losing his nose in the duel with the other man who wanted the girl he loved is a story straight from court. It was told in aristocratic circles long before it reached the middle or lower classes. However, the story of Tycho saving the little girl from the evil monsters because the woman he loved asked him to do so comes from Molly. Tycho the Brave himself was simply so famous that everyone knew of him, so the legends that sprung up after his death, came from every class and region of Volstov. And the themes in each legend--well, they vary from class to class."

That was actually kind of fucking interesting, not like I'd tell anyone that. "So you mean a legend that comes from Molly has a different message than a legend from Miranda?"

The kid smiled broadly, like he was fucking proud of me. "Exactly! A lot of the aristocratic legends are all about, for example, honor, but a lot of the Molly legends are about, say, loyalty or trust. A lot of the legends from the country feature bad weather as the villain, as opposed to a monster or another person, because a blizzard or a tornado or a fire can be devastating to a farm. It's really quite fascinating."

I was starting to get bored, though it was kind of an interesting thought. "You mean to say different stories come from Miranda folk and Mollyrats and hicks?"

"Yep," the kid said. "I'm writing about why class makes these things change. It's for my sociology class, but since I'm studying literature, the professor gave me a literary topic." 

"And you _like_ doing this shit?"

The kid practically glowed, he smiled so wide. It was kinda creepily familiar, but I didn't want to think about that. "I love it." 

I rolled my eyes. Fucking little 'Versity shit, he'd let school make him soft. No way would that kid survive in Molly now. 

He looked up at me again, and I noticed he had dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in fucking weeks. I remembered Balfour looking like that in the hospital after the war, unable to sleep 'cause he could feel his hands moving even though they were gone. We were all so doped up that the rest of us did nearly nothing but, but Balfour nearly went fucking insane with no sleep before his hands stopped moving.

We'd all looked like that at the end of the war, too, sleeping in fits and starts between watches and bombs and blood and sirens. Compagnon's eye had got a piece of shrapnel in it, and Adamo had taken it out in the bunker. Magoughin was dead and just fucking lying there, starting to smell. By the time the cindy spy who'd been feeding us shit had gotten us the information and convinced th'Esar that the best way to go about it was a direct hit, none of us had had a decent night's sleep in a month. 

By the time the army got us out of the torture camp and fucking Ke-Han surrendered, most everyone, not just Magoughin, was fucking dead. 

The kid looked a little like that, not the war zone part, but the sleepless part. Guess that was a 'Versity thing, though, all that fucking studying. 

I didn't think it was anything more till the next day, when he was sitting at the table like always, but with a ragged duffel and a box full of books next to him. 

"Fuck's up with you," Have's face said. 

The kid's smile was as pale and sleepless as the rest of him, now that he wasn't talking about fucking literature or whatever. "Got evicted." He shook his head. "I was so busy, I forgot about the date, and that I had to have the rent in by the end of the month, or else..." he sighed, and put his face in his hands, like he was all wore out, but I saw the anger in his eyes and twisting around his mouth – it was more like he was trying to hide that. "Fuck."

 _Well_ then. Maybe there still was some Molly in the fucking kid after all.

\--

I knew a lot about being homeless. Parents abandoned me and my brother when we were brats still, three and eleven, and we ended up living with this old lady who didn't give a damn what happened to us, and that was okay by me. I took care of Hilary, he stayed in our room when I went to school, and in the afternoons we scrounged up some food and were okay. We were just fine, Hil and me. 

'Course, then the house burnt down with Hil still inside and after that I didn't have a place to live and I didn't have no one to take care of, so I was on my own and lived in alleys and cardboard boxes and shelters every once in while, slipping through the cracks, till I got arrested 'cause I tried to pick up an undercover cop and they put me in the system. 

I ran away a lot, got kicked out a few times, learned to fight. Spent more time at fucking school than any home, which is saying something since I never went to school. 

Most Molly orphans deal with some kind of homeless for a while, but the kid looked totally fucking lost. But then, maybe he'd had a fucking family. 

"You're from Molly and you've never been homeless before?" 

He shrugged. "I grew up in one of the whorehouses. It used to be next to the high school, till the building got condemned. But I was seven then, and we managed just fine till we got another place. Or," his face fell even further, which I hadn't though fucking possible, " _I_ didn't suffer much for it, I guess." 

Grew up in a whorehouse...I thought about my nose, still a little swollen, and grinned. "So you _were_ a low-priced whore." 

The kid looked at me archly. "Molly whorehouses have enough of a problem with the government as it is, you think they'd pimp out some underage kid? That would get them shut down in a heartbeat." Oh. Right. "By the time I turned fifteen, it looked like I might get into 'Versity and Madam wouldn't let me work, because I should 'be studying instead.' Her words, not mine. She wanted me out, I guess, since I had a chance." 

"So you were raised okay, huh?" 

He shrugged again. "Guess so. Most everyone tried to take care of me, but some didn't like it that I didn't have to turn tricks, even though Madam had pretty much decreed that I was going to school. I got some flack."

I snorted. Whores did not do _flack._ Whores did _you bastion-damned little fucker, you think you're so much better than the rest of us? Let's just see if you bleed blue then like you fucking think._

It was a miracle he got to 'Versity with both his fucking eyes. 

His face was red--he knew I was onto him. He definitely got cut by some of the whores at that house, no matter what he said. I nearly laughed--he was so fucking stupid for some 'Veristy hotshot. 

"So where are you gonna go?"

"Probably the library. It's open all night, and there are lots of places no one goes. I can shower in the gym locker rooms."

"Aren't there like dorms on the campus?"

He looked away, his face going redder. "I'm not exactly friends with anyone I could stay with."

I laughed. "You realize what a fucking loser you are? No friends, no apartment, doing nothing but studying all the fucking time? Bastion _fuck_. What sort of fucking life is that?"

"It's _my_ fucking life," the kid snapped. "So shut up. What do you do?" He stood up and faced me. "You're here every day with your hawk, just walking. What sort of life do _you_ have? People might recognize you on the street, yeah, but not often, and you don't even fucking care anyway. It's not as though you're a glamorous celebrity. You don't seem to have a job, you don't seem to have friends except for Havemercy--from what I can see, your life isn't any better than mine. You might have a place to live but at least I'm _doing_ something, and it's something I love."

Fucking cindy piece of shit! Who the _fuck_ was he to say this sort of shit to me? I shoved him hard, suddenly furious, and he stumbled back into the tree on the side of the patio area. I followed him back, trapping him there, and he went white, his eyes going wide with fear. I grinned at him showing teeth, the kind of grin that's nothing but anger. 

"You little fucking shit," I hissed, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him hard against the tree. "You have no fucking right to tell me that."

"I have as much a right as anyone," he shot back, his voice shaking a little. "You're not any better than I am."

"But I am. I have a place to sleep tonight, and you don't. Seems like I'm better'n you. And I have Havemercy. Who do you have? No one."

The kid's eyes darted to one side like I wasn't telling the truth. "Oh? You do have someone?"

He breathed something real quiet, so quiet I couldn't fucking hear him. "Speak up, you bitch," I said, slamming him against the tree again. "Be fucking honest. That's part of your 'Versity honor code, ain't it?"

He licked his lips, nervous, and my mouth went oddly dry. Then his eyes darted back to mine and he said, real quiet-like, "I have you."

I burst into laughter. "That's the best you got? _Me_?"

"Better than nothing," the kid said defensively. He wasn't moving against the tree--either he'd given up or he was waiting for me to let down my guard, and I was betting on the last one. He'd continued to surprise me since we met, and I wasn't taking any fucking chances. 

I shook my head. "Ain't better than nothing, you fuck. If I'm all you got, you're fucking _screwed_."

The kid shrugged. "Maybe," he said, and his face might have still be white as a fucking sheet, and he might have still been trembling, but his hands moved fast and sure and he grabbed my face and kissed me. 

\--

I ain't no fucking cindy, but I turned tricks, as a kid and after the war both, and when you're a man on a street corner, mostly you're picking up johns. Most of the time I gritted my teeth and bore it, but there are always those few tricks who like it if you like it, and so I was perfectly aware that men could be nice. 

Didn't make me a cindy, though. I liked fucking girls just as much, actually way more even, than I'd ever enjoyed getting blown by a guy, or even fucking one, which I'd had the chance to do a couple of times. 

So what the fuck was this kid doing? Or, really, why the fuck was I _liking_ it? 

Granted I remember thinking his lips were made for sucking cock, but then, he was a 'Versity student and probably a nellie himself so that wasn't particularly shocking. 

The kid kissed hard and hot, the way I liked it, the way only a few really aggressive whores did. He used his tongue and his teeth and his hands, licking into my mouth, biting at my lips, digging his fingernails into my neck enough to sting but not enough to hurt. He pulled me against him, hooked a foot around my ankle and _pulled_ , and suddenly I had to balance with a hand against the tree to keep myself from tipping into him. 

What the hell, I thought, and kissed him back, gripping his jaw with my other hand and forcing his head back for a better angle. He used his tongue really fucking well, and most whores that good with their tongues sucked cock like it was their bastion-fucked destiny. Kid could _kiss_. 

Made me wonder how much truth there was to him never turning tricks. Course, he'd never said he hadn't turned tricks, just said he hadn't turned 'em at the whorehouse 'cause the madam wouldn't let him. He coulda been on a street corner for fucking years without anyone knowing, and I knew full-rides didn't cover room or textbooks, and that most 'Versity students never got fucking laid. He probable blew half the school to get money for books alone. 

" _Hey!_ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I got kids coming to my stand. You gon' make out, you do it in private."

I grabbed Thom's shoulders and pushed him back against the tree. He was easy to move, light. 

He wiped his mouth and stared up at me fiercely, like he was daring me to hit him. I thought about it, but decided that if this was going to get me laid for free--especially with a mouth like that--I better not take any chances. He was still pale, except for the way his lips had flushed red and there were spots of color in his cheeks, and his shoulders were shaking. The fuck, did the kid get off on being fucking scared or something?

Behind us, Have made a slight sound that sounded rather unnervingly like laughter. 

"Fuck you," I said without turning, and backed up just a little to give the kid a Look. Then I did turn, and offer my arm to Have. 

"Wha--" the kid said, and cut off. I didn't need to look at him to know that he probably had a look on his face like a fucking kicked puppy. 

"You coming?" 

" _What_?"

"I _said_ , you fucking coming? C'mon, let's not traumatize the fucking b--the _lady_." 

The bitch at the stand huffed but said nothing. 

"Oh. Oh! Wait--" He grabbed his duffel and the box and followed me. 

I grinned. 

\--

Despite having a huge fucking bag on his back and a ratty cardboard box in his arms, the kid kept up with me and have without a problem, which was a good sign of his stamina. We took the elevator to the penthouse and he gaped at the way I had to slide my key into a slot next to the top floor button, which made me laugh at him. 

"You are so fucking stupid," I told him, and he flushed. 

"It's just...where did you get your money?" He glanced at me nervously. "I know ex-military get a stipend, but this is a building for..." He trailed off, like he was trying to be delicate. 

"Millionaires," I said flatly. "Won the lottery the year after the war." 

He blinked. "Oh."

"Lucky fucking break," I told him. "Spent most of my stipend on medical bills, the rest on a shit apartment. Could barely afford to eat."

The kid's hand clenched around his duffel like he was angry. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

His teeth sunk into his full lower lip, and I could suddenly picture that mouth around my cock vividly. I would have bet my entire fortune and Havemercy to boot that the kid could suck cock like nothing else. "Nothing. Just...it bothers me that th'Esar doesn't pay for the medical bills of the soldiers. A lot of them are still in trouble."

I didn't doubt it. 

The elevator dinged open into my entryway and I stepped in and glanced at the kid behind me. "Well?"

He followed me, and the doors slid shut. 

And then several things happened very fast. Have flew off to one of her many perches, unsurprisingly. Then the kid dropped his bag, set down his box, shoved me against the wall, kissed me again, and started in on my pants. 

I pushed him back. "What the _fuck_?"

"Shut up," the kid said, pulling the zip down with one hand and holding my shoulder to the wall with another. "You'll like this."

And then he dropped to his knees and sucked my dick into his mouth. 

\--

I was completely right. The kid sucked cock like he loved it, moaning around my dick, one hand gripping my hip almost hard enough to bruise, the other running up and down my thigh. 

And he was damn good. Knew exactly what he was doing, knew how to use his tongue and the slightest edge of his teeth, knew how to open up his throat and suck me all the way down, a hint of pain on the edge sometimes but never too much. 

The hand on the outside of my thigh vanished suddenly and I glanced down at him, and he was undoing his pants fast and awkward, pulling out his cock, which was already hard. The kid was getting off on sucking dick alone, and that was about the hottest thing I'd seen in a long time, cindy or not. I threw my head back against the wall, slamming into it, enough true pain to bring me away from the edge, to stretch out the best fucking blowjob I'd had in probably fucking _years_ as long as I fucking could. 

And then he swallowed me down again, hard, his throat moving around the head of my cock, and I came. I could hear the kid gasping, his whole body jerking, and knew he was coming too. 

"Bastion _fuck_ ," I said, surprised I could even manage to remember how to talk.

The kid slipped my cock out of his mouth and smiled up at me, smug. His hand was covered in his own come, but none of mine had even escaped his mouth. 

I wasn't sure I could fucking move, but I knew as soon as I could I was going to fuck his brains out. 

\--

The first night was good, the kid scrabbling at the sheets for some kind of purchase, writhing and gasping and coming all over the place. 

The second night was better, the kid wanting to study and me just dragging him onto the couch, holding his hips, leaving fingerprint bruises, while he rode me and tossed his head. 

The third night, I tied his wrists to the headboard and fucked him slow and deep and hard and wouldn't let him come until I had. Twice. He got more and more desperate, his voice getting raw, begging me, even cursing me, his cheeks flushed, his nipples hard, his cocksucking mouth red, his t-shirt rucked up around his armpits. 

"F-fuck you," he gasped, as I moved in and out of him, enjoying every moment. I like sex hard and fast, aggressive, but sometimes I like it slow too, and he was just gonna have to deal with that. 

"You wanna be in charge," I told him, leaning over so our lips nearly brushed, "then you tie me up."

He shoved his hips up and rubbed his cock on my belly, straining for friction. I pulled back. "Sorry, sweetheart," I drawled, smirking at him. "That ain't gonna fly here. I stand by what I said." I lifted one of his legs so it was over my shoulder, moving a little deeper, a little faster, a little harder. 

"Like I could t-tie you-- _nngh_ \--l-like I c-could tie you up-- _bastion fuck,_ Rook! Fucking _please!_ " He arched his back, one smooth line only broken by the shadows of his ribs. 

I laughed, a little breathless. "You're kinda a slut, ain't you?" I told him, and he shuddered and came just like that, all over his belly, spurting more come than I think I'd ever seen in my life and it was enough for a third orgasm, not nearly as impressive as his, of course, but pretty damn good. 

The fourth night he caught me unaware during a hockey game and wrapped my wrists in one big hand of his--and that was unexpectedly fucking hot, the fact that he could hold both my hands in one of his--and fucked himself down on me without a fucking care in the world, and then slid up my chest and came all over my face, grinning the whole time. And then he fucked me, on my knees, face pressed into the floor, hands still held behind my back, and I was okay with that, if it was only once in a while, because if it was that fucking great every time it was worth being a fucking cindy in every fucking way. 

The fifth night we ordered two pizzas and finished them and a six-pack off in an hour, and then the kid said, "So. Am I staying here?"

"You're a really good fuck," I told him. 

"I could pay rent. I have a job, not very many hours and bad wages, but I could--"

"Fuck that. I have a guest room no one uses and more money than I fucking know what to do with. You can pay in sex."

The kid rolled his eyes and stroked his chin as if considering something. It was a weirdly familiar look. "Oh, I don't know if I could do that. So immoral." 

"Fuck you," I told him, and screwed him over the kitchen table. 

\--

So that's kind of how it went. We fucked a lot and ate pizza and drank more beer than was, as the kid put it, "strictly necessary." 

He was full of shit. There was no such thing as too much liquor. 

The kid was usually gone by the time I got up for my walk with Have, but we met during his break at the park by the meat bun stand like we had when we weren't fucking and living in the same apartment—that was really all it was, after all, and I didn't mind it so much that way. Someone to fuck who would do—well, _anything_ , and if that wasn't fucking hot as hell I didn't know what was. And he didn't want anything from me, really, except someone to talk at sometimes. 

Well, a lot of the time. And that _was_ pretty annoying but the sex was so good that I could live with it. 

The surviving airmen came over for dinner a few weeks after he'd moved in. They didn't say anything, but we actually had dinner instead of take-out or my shitty, half-hearted, burnt attempts at frozen pizza or Hamburger Helper and massive amounts of liquor to make up for how much dinner fucking sucked. This time, the kid cooked something—simple, I guess, tacos or something, shit that came from the store and just needed heating, and joined us for the hockey game. 

He and Balfour hit it off—not completely shocking, given that they were both nellie as anything and well-educated and shit. They talked about fucking literature during the period breaks while the rest of us stared at them like they were nuts (though Luvander might have been listening intently, I couldn't tell because he was wearing one if his ridiculous fucking hats) but they both watched the game like it would get them to Regina.

The Cobalts won, of course. We beat the fucking Ke-Han in the war, and we'll beat the Magicians at hockey until the end of the fucking world. 

The kid liked hockey. He was real quiet about it unless you got him plastered—which was fucking surprisingly difficult—some 'Versity sin to like common-fucker sports or something, I supposed. But when the game was close his fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were white, and when we won he grinned like a million dollars had been dropped in his lap. 

Adamo met me at the studio I taught at the next day. "The kid," he said. 

"What about him?" I asked, picking up all the disasters my stupid fucking students left behind. 

"You're not taking advantage of him, are you?"

I laughed. "Are you fucking kidding me? What would you do if I was?"

Adamo narrowed his eyes but said nothing. It was enough to remind me that I was probably bluffing—Adamo was the only person on earth who could kick my ass. He was my CO, after all, and as much as I hated the fucking army authority shit and following orders that were shit like "don't kill until we fucking tell you to," I still respected him. 

"Look," he said. "I know him, a little. Th'Esar's spymaster's a professor at the university and he's familiar with the kid. He's a good kid. He's brilliant. And if you fuck him over—"

"You'll what? Defend his fucking honor?"

Adamo gave me his patented _don't be fucking stupid_ look. "I'll just be pissed. I don't need another incident like the Arlemagne diplomat's wife during the war, and while you wouldn't set off an international conflict, you might be facing prosecution from the university for sexually harassing a student."

"You think he doesn't want it?" I laughed. "You should hear him fucking _scream_. He fucking _loves_ every moment—"

"I would rather not hear about this," Adamo said flatly, giving me a Look, and left. 

It was a stupid fear, only brought out prolly 'cause Adamo had these weird fits about strange, pointless things that were none of his business every once in a while after the war. We all had our quirks, and Adamo was probably better adjusted than any of the rest of us. 

Well, the rest of us who were still alive, that is. 

It still made me glance at Have that afternoon while we were walking home. "You think it's a problem, Thom and me?"

Have did that snorty bird thing she did. Her eyes said, _do_ you _think it's a problem? Or does he?_

"I didn't ask what I thought," I told her sharply. _What do_ you _think?_

_I like him,_ Have said. _He has brass balls like you do. He just hides them better_.

"I don't hide them at all," I said. 

_Exactly, you fucking fool,_ she said, and looked at me haughtily.

Bitch. 

Though I really didn't know a lot about him. But I knew enough: he was a 'Versity student, he was clearly a Maryanne, or at least half of one, he was too smart for his own damn good but still didn't possess an ounce of common sense. He was fucking incredible in bed, and he was way too honest, especially for a former Mollyrat. It was going to get him in trouble someday. 

And he had no sense of self-preservation, and he was stubborn as fuck, but I didn't think about those too long 'cause they kinda struck a little close to home. 

And none of that stopped him from being able to take care of himself, more or less. Bastion, he'd gotten me in the face. He'd broken my fucking _nose_ , and that's more than I can say about anyone who's punched me in the face since I was twelve. He told me no, once, and when I pushed he kicked me in a place no man should ever be fucking kicked—not hard, he's not that much of a fool—and locked himself in the bathroom. It wasn't like anything we did was fucking _nonconsensual_ , or whatever, 'cause if he didn't want it, he made sure I fucking kenw it, and if I didn't want it he left me well enough alone. As much as I sort of hated Thom, or maybe just found him annoying and bitchy, I had to admit that at this point we stood on relatively even ground. I was better than him, of course, but he held his own and I wasn't going to challenge that. He might have been a 'Versity student, but he was still a fucking Mollyrat beneath all that schooling, and that was something he wasn't never gonna get rid of completely.

When I got home from the studio, Thom was on the phone, looking completely baffled. 

"Well," he said, "I—" but then he was clearly cut off by the person on the other line, who I could hear chattering all over the place—

Oh. Oh fucking hell no, I was not subjecting Thom to Caius fucking Greylace, because _no one_ deserved Caius fucking Greylace. I wouldn't wish him on the fucking Ke-Han. Havemercy sqwaked in agreement and I stalked over to the phone and grabbed it. "Shut the fuck up, Caius," I said, and hung up, only catching the beginning of his shriek of indignation. 

"Um," Thom said. "Who was—"

"The guy who owns my studio has a…" Alcibiades barely tolerated Greylace, but tolerate him he did, some of the time. Maybe he was good in bed, though he looked underage and also like he'd snap in about six different places if you fucked him. "Friend? Fuckbuddy? I'm not really sure. Alcibiades don't seem to like him much anyway, either, but whatever. Caius Greylace. I wouldn't sic him on the fucking Ke-Han."

Thom smiled wryly. "Coming from you, that's saying something."

"He's a lunatic," I told him. "Messed in the head."

"That's also saying something," Thom said, almost laughing, and I smacked him across the back of the head. 

"Shut the fuck up," I told him, and he kissed me, laughing into my mouth, pulling at my hair, half-happy and half-fierce and Have made a sound that was irritated and clearly said, _you better get me pizza for fucking dinner tonight, you little bastard. Supreme. With spicy sausage._

I flipped her off and she flapped to her perch on the sofa and then we had dinner, Thom and I sprawled on the kitchen floor, Have perched on an open cabinet door—pizza, of course, because Have wanted it and who were we to say no? 

Other than the "talking about pointless shit all the bastion-fucking time" and the "friends with Balfour, what the _fuck_?" part, the kid really wasn't so bad, and I realized as I watched him inhale a whole fucking pizza in a matter of minutes and wipe his tomato-stained mouth on his cum-stained t-shirt that I was pretty fucking content with my life. 

Of course, that's always when it all goes to hell.


	2. Chapter 2

We never talked after we fucked, but sometimes we ordered a pizza and got horrendously drunk during a hockey game and once it was done and the Cobalts had won, we would have awful maudlin conversations.

This was only if it was an obvious game, of course, because if it was close we were both so worked up by the end we ended up fucking on the sofa. The kid was still a fabulous fuck, and Have tended to leave us alone, though sometimes she watched from the kitchen counter, this knowing look on her face, smug as all fuck, and I would flip her off over Thom's head. 

But we would talk every once in a while, and one night I was drunk enough and happy enough to tell him about Hilary. He'd been talking about the whorehouse he'd grown up in, about the boy who gave him hand-me-downs and the girl that beat him up and taught him how to throw a fucking hard punch, and the drink in me'd decided it was time for me to return the favor. 

"Hilary was a fucking smart three-year-old brat," I said. "He learned how to fucking read when he was three, just by listening to me tell him what street signs said what. But he had no common sense, the fucking pest. In the summer he'd eat fireflies, 'cause he thought they'd make him glow. And he never fucking listened to me." I didn't tell him he listened to me that day, when I told him to stay in the house and he fucking _had_ , actually fucking listened to me for fucking once, and look where he ended up.

The kid said nothing in response to that, just looked oddly pale. Prolly the light. Then he glanced at the clock and said, "Shit! I have class tomorrow at seven-thirty, and it's past midnight." He stood up and said, "I should get--"

"What, no fuck?" I asked, sprawling back on the couch. 

"It's Chemistry 306," he said, pleading suddenly, almost desperate. "And I have a test--"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." 

He went to bed. I called a whore. 

Have was quiet all night, which was fucking weird but a good thing, overall, except for the part where I couldn't sleep 'cause she wasn't moving around to make noise. But when the whore left and I got up to piss, Thom's light was still on--probably studying, prude that he was--and it was gratifying to know that he knew that I fucked some bitch but it could have been _him_ , if he hadn't been too busy taking it up the ass from the 'Versity like a good little shit.

\--

The next morning he was gone when I woke up, and still hadn't returned that night. He called, saying something had come up in some class, and I told him to stop fucking caring so much and just come the fuck home. 

Part of me wondered if I'd done something, and most of me didn't particularly care. After all, it wasn't like I was invested in this… _thing_ we did, anyway. Why should I fucking care?

But…part of me _did_ fucking care, and that pissed me off more than almost anything ever had. 

Have and I ordered Kyril take-out and sat on the couch and ate horrible, delicious fried food. She was more subdued than usual, but that didn't make her any less amused at the fact that I was clearly suffering from fucking _emotions_. It just made me more angry, and Havemercy called me _grouch_ and I kind of wanted to wring her neck. 

Even though I went to bed alone, she didn’t come with me, which was odd, but she gave me that _I can take care of myself_ and _you, you little fucker_ look and I let her be. 

Thom wasn't there the next morning, either. He'd been home, though; there were new dirty clothes in the hamper in his bathroom. He didn't call all day, and I wasn't worried but it was fucking _weird_.

I taught that afternoon, and Have was lounging on the couch, still lazier than usual. 

"You're being fucking lazy," I told her, and she gave me an irritated look. 

_Fuck you,_ she said, _Go be a productive member of society and teach little brats how to kill other little brats_. 

Which was a pretty accurate assessment of what I did, except for the 'productive member of society' part. I don't think glaring at small children is really productive for anyone except me and Have.

We sure as fuck like it, though. 

\--

The brats were pretty on board that afternoon, which was surprising in a good way. Usually they were so far behind me that if it'd been the war I would have killed them in milliseconds. They might have lasted a whole second that lesson, though, which was truly impressive. 

I was sparring with one of the older, less-incompetent ones when the door slammed open.

I whirled. "How many times have I fucking _told_ you to--"

Thom was standing there, holding a pet carrier. His face was the color of paper, and his hands were trembling. 

And he was holding a fucking _pet carrier._ The one that I bought for Havemercy when I'd gotten her, though I'd never used it. She'd never been sick, never needed it. 

"It's--" he said, and I shoved him hard against the wall. 

"What did you do?"

Thom shook his head. "Nothing! She just--she came in through the window and she was acting odd, moving slowly, and she just went to sleep on the floor--"

"What," I hissed, "the _fuck_ did you do."

" _Nothing!_ " Thom said, and shoved me off. "I did _nothing_! I put her in her carrier and took her here because I don't know where you take her to the vet!" 

I stopped, and took the carrier from his hands, holding it up. Have was in there, awake but she was clearly weak. She barely lifted her head. 

I turned back to the class. "Lesson's over. Go home."

Then I tucked the carrier under one arm and grabbed the kid's with the other and dragged them out to my car. I shoved him into the shotgun seat, put the carrier in his lap, and got in on my side. 

"I--"

"If you say another fucking word I am going to slit your throat." 

His mouth snapped shut, and I nearly smirked, except it took one glance at the carrier in his lap and all I could think of was Have, sick and weak and I didn't have a fucking clue why. 

We got on the freeway and Thom swallowed so hard I could hear it. Fucking bitch. 

"I'm Hilary, John," he said suddenly.

I slammed one hand on the wheel and snarled, "What the fuck did I—" and then the words made sense, or didn't make sense but I understood them--

Thom looked like he was going to throw up. "You're my brother, John. I'm Hilary."

I pulled over. "What kind of sick fucking joke is this?"

"It's not a joke. We--you used to go out to the library dumpster, and get books they'd thrown away. In the winter a lot of kids would get sick or something, and there might be vomit or saliva or urine on them, and so they would just throw them away because they got city funding and could afford to do that. You'd bring the books home to me, and we'd read them. Sometimes you'd read them to me, but I got to reading them on my own."

He looked down at the carrier, and I shook my head, trying not to think and failing. I had done that. I remembered the sick smell of the trash, the books stained with puke and piss and little-kid drool, Hilary's fucking smile as bright as the sun when I gave them to him--

\--and everything just kind of clicked, his smile like our bitch of a mother's, except kind, the familiar considering look—our asshole of a father calculating the money he'd made the week, before he realized there was never enough and looking at us with resentment—and _fuck_ , he had Mother's eyes. He had _Hilary's_ fucking eyes, of course, that was where I'd always seen them, trusting and certain that I could do no wrong--

 _Have_.

"We'll talk about this later." I pulled back onto the freeway. 

Thom was--the kid was fucking _Hilary_. 

I thought I was going to puke.

\--

I went to Have's vet every few years, just to make sure she was doing okay. She knew me, because the statues of the airmen weren't far away and because she didn't have any other patients with pet hawks, but I'd never come in without an appointment and she was surprised to see Have in a carrier and not on my shoulder. 

"She's fucking sick," I told him. "She's been weak, and the kid over there says this afternoon she went to sleep on the floor, not one of her perches, lying on her fucking side."

The doc bent slightly and looked in. She was skinny and kind of bitchy and married to some desert prince and had a strange quality to her voice but she knew what the fuck she was doing and she was damn good at her job and Have liked her as much as Have liked anyone.

She nodded. "I'll run some tests, Airman Rook," she said, and I scowled at her use of my title. She never didn't call me 'Airman,' though, so I'd fucking given up. "Let's move to an exam room."

In the room she took Have out of the carrier. Have let her, but she seemed so weak that it wouldn't have mattered either way. "She's…around ten or eleven now, right? I'll check her file for the exact age in a moment."

I nodded. "Almost eleven, I think."

The doc ran her fingers down her wings gently, and then her torso. She bent each little leg slowly, and it struck me how small Have really was, compared to humans. How weak parts of her were, how easy it would be to break one of her legs or her hollow-boned wings. 

"No wounds or anomalies," the doc murmured, and coaxed Have's mouth open. "Hmm. I'll need to draw some blood, all right?" Looking down at her, she asked, "Can the Airman stay here, or do you need him to come with you?"

 _He might need_ me, Have said, tossing her head, still snooty as fuck even when sick. _I'll be fine_.

The doc shot me a look that said, _will_ you _be fine?_ and I just glared at her and sat on the bench next to Thom, who was pale and shaking, his hands clenched into fists. 

"Rook," he began, and then, "John—"

"Shut the fuck up," I told him, and he did, and we sat there, not looking at each other. I wasn't thinking about him, I reminded myself, and for the most part I wasn't: I was focused on Have, on hearing her and the doc if I could, on her smell still in the room and on my shirt, on the feather she'd shed in the carrier. 

I didn't know what I was going to do if she was sick. And I couldn't even _think_ about what would fucking happen if she—

I took the feather from the carrier and buried my face in my hands, waiting for the damn doc to come back. 

\--

I didn't know how much time had passed, but something occurred to me as we sat in the exam room, something I remembered Hilary doing, something I remembered seeing when Thom had thrown his head back when he came, something I had never connected. I grabbed his shoulder, ignored his, "Ro—Jo-- _what_ \--" and pushed his hair off his forehead. 

And there it was, a small white scar, from when Hilary had tumbled down the steps and cracked his head on the landing. 

It seemed like a part of me had always known.

"Fuck," I said, and then: " _Fuck!_." 

"I'm sorry," Thom--Hilary said, real quiet-like. "I'm so sorry." He reached out, like he was gonna set a hand on my shoulder, thought better of it, and pulled away. We sat at opposite ends of the bench, a foot of space or more between us. 

Fuck. 

\--  
More time passed, hours or minutes, and then the doc came back in, Havemercy cradled in her arms. 

"Well?" I said, and she stroked Have's feathers, gently.

"It's not good news," she said. "It's not good news at all."

I swallowed. "What the fuck is it?"

She sighed. "It's called cholangiocarcinoma. It's a form of liver cancer—I took a few cultures, noticed some liver abnormalities, and remembered reading about it a few months ago in a journal. The cancer's most frequently found in humans, but a strand of it was found in red-tailed hawks not too long ago." She placed Have in my arms, and I cradled her to me, not thinking about how fucking ridiculous I looked. "Symptoms include pain, jaundice, abnormalities in tests, itching, fever, and weight loss, and while she hasn't lost any weight—that you would have noticed—she's had all the others. She just has been hiding them very well. She's the smartest bird I've ever met, you know."

"How long?" I asked hoarsely, and she shrugged. 

"She's been sick for a few months, maybe."

"How long does she fucking have _left_?" I demanded, and the doc closed her eyes. 

"Hours. Probably less."

 _There wasn't anything you could do about it,_ Have's face said. _You would have worried, and you're not meant for worrying._

"You're worth worrying about," I said, and she cackled a little. 

_Brat,_ she said fondly, and nuzzled my hand, pecking at it. 

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like," the doc said quietly, and I nodded, leaning back against the wall, settling Have in my lap, stroking the soft feathers on her head.

Thom—Hilary—the kid stood up after a while, and left. He came back later. I didn't know how long he'd been or where he'd gone, and I honestly didn't care. 

_He's a good kid,_ she said when he came back. _He's good for you_.

"He's my brother," I told her, raw. "It's the whole fucking universe against me."

 _Against us_ , her face said. _You and me, and maybe him, if we decide so_.

"Haven't you decided that already?" I asked, and she cackled, weakly. 

_Guess I have_ , she said, and pecked my hand again. _I'm sorry, you little fucker_ , she said, and sighed.

I looked up, and the kid and the doc were leaning against the counter, not watching me; Thom reading a book, though his eyes weren't moving at all; the doc looking through her charts.

Have shuddered, and let out a loud breath, and my heart squeezed tight on itself.

I picked her up off my lap and she was trembling and looked up at me. Her eyes were brilliantly gold still, and sharp, but glassy with pain. 

"I thought—" I said, and looked up. Thom—Hilary—Thom was leading the doc out of the exam room, though they left the door open. A shallow comfort, but one nonetheless. "I thought I had years."

 _You know better than anyone how fast things change,_ her face said. _Don't be a fool_. 

"I know," I said. "I—I—"

 _Bastion fuck, don't say it!_ She looked fairly horrified. _Fuck, you're even more of a cindy than I thought you were, you rude little asshole._

"Fuck you," I told her, and she pecked weakly at my hand, and looked up at me. She seemed endlessly exhausted. 

I held her, more gentle than I'd ever fucking held _anything_ , and begged her to live. Begged whoever, whatever was out there to let her live, to suck away my life and give it to her. 

She made a weak little squawky sound, said, _get some manners, you fucking fool,_ and went limp. 

"Have. Have." I rubbed my fingers against her. "Havemercy. _Havemercy,_ , you litte bitch, wake the basion fuck up! Damn it, you _cunt_ , wake up!"

A big hand landed on my arm, gentle. "Rook," the kid said, and it was the first time he'd ever called me by name when we weren't fucking. "Rook, she's—" he stopped, and looked in my eyes, and then removed his hand when he read whatever he saw there. 

I grabbed his wrist, pulled him back, rested my face on his shoulder, my head too heavy for my neck. 

"Fuck you," I told him. "Fuck you and her and everyone in this whole bastion-damned fucking world and _fuck it!_ "

"I know," he said, and when I punched him in the jaw, he let me. 

\--

We went home, Thom—Hilary—the _kid_ driving, with Havemercy in a little box that was supposed to go in the freezer until I decided where to bury her. The doc hadn't charged me for the visit, even though it was nearly midnight and I'd been there for eight hours. We left the pet carrier with her.

I couldn't move, barely. The kid was moving me, holding my elbow, a dark bruise forming on his jaw where I'd hit him. I didn't regret it. He very quietly told me to turn left here, here's the elevator, come on, and by the time we got to the top I was sort of thinking straight. I stopped the elevator on the floor below me and Thom followed me, confusedly, his face pale, as we walked to the stairwell. 

"What are we doing?" he asked, and I stopped. 

"We're taking the fucking stairs," I said. "I want to _do_ something." I put my key into the stairwell lock.

"Why?"

"Why the fuck not." I unlocked the door and shoved it open. "You're my little fucking brother, you should listen to me."

The kid swallowed, his face going even whiter, and followed me into the stairwell, but he didn't climb. I stopped and turned around. "What the fuck are you doing."

"I--I should have said it right away, when you talked about it last week." Thom-- _Hilary_ \--said. "B-but, we'd already--and I didn't--" He looked completely fucking miserable.

"Shut the fuck up," I said. "I don't know what the fuck I would have done if you'd told me you had an older brother who brought you picture books from the library dumpster that had been puked on by little kids. I'm not going to beat you up." 

Except I wanted to punch something, or stab it, or go out and get piss-drunk and kill someone and leave 'em for dead in an alleyway—because it was only just occurring to me that Have was _dead_ , had fucking _died_ and the kid who I'd been screwing, who I actually might have liked, as much as I liked anyone, was my kid fucking _brother_ , the one thing I remembered happily about growing up in Molly and I'd been _fucking_ him, and neither of us had known and Havemercy was dead and--

I sat down on the landing and thrust Havemercy's box at him. "Go. Go away."

Thom--Hil--the kid jumped and stared at me. "Wh-what?"

"Go to your room or school or anywhere, just...fucking leave me alone right now." 

He nodded, shakily, and rubbed his eyes under his spectacles and nodded again. "O-okay." And then he didn't leave. 

Little shit. "Did you hear me? Get. The. Fuck. Out."

He jumped and dashed up the stairs and I heard the door click shut. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck!_

\--

It didn't even fucking matter if I liked the kid or not, if he was my brother or not. Because it just kept setting in, deeper and deeper and deeper, kind of like shoving a knife in my ribs and just twisting it, more and more, and deeper and deeper, until I thought it would come out my back but it never did. 

It never did because there was no fucking knife, the thing twisting in my ribs was fact and the fact was that Havemercy was dead. 

I finally managed to make it up the stairs and into the front hall, but I couldn't go any further. Have had perches--ones designed for her and places she liked to perch on whether they were meant for a bird or not--in every room. More than one. One next to the coat rack. The spot on the back of the couch, just barely visible from the hall, where her claws had dug into the leather over and over during hockey games and rugby matches and UFC on Saturday nights. 

My boots by the door.

Have was fucking _everything._ I had nothing without her. My whole life was hers, my schedule, my apartment, my food, hell, if I wasn't fucking anyone (and sometimes if I was) she roosted on one of my bedposts. No more walks in the park, no more glaring at fucking annoying little kids at the playground, no more bastion-damned half-conversations in the kitchen whenever I tried to make dinner. _Nothing_.

There was liquor in the kitchen, which had been my plan when I'd lurched up the steps, but now I couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but slide to the ground and rest my cheek against my knees, hands at my sides, lying limp on the tile. I'd held her in those fucking useless hands and _willed_ her to live and she had died anyway. 

"Maybe this is how Balfour feels all the time," I said aloud. My voice was hoarse.

\--

The need to shit finally got me off the floor and into the toilet, and from there I went to the kitchen and found vodka. I sat on the chair in the living room I never sat on—I always sat on the couch, Have on the back of it behind me—closed my eyes, and drank the entire fifth in two hours.

The kid found me the next morning in the bathroom, covered in puke. Most of it had, somehow, made it into the toilet. Some of it hadn’t. 

He moved me to another bathroom and then I heard the phone, him talking quietly. Probably calling the cleaning lady, part of me realized. 

The cleaning lady had been terrified of Have. She'd respected her like nothing else, but had been so fucking scared of her—

If I was thinking of that—thinking of _her_ \--I needed more alcohol. My headache would go away if I was drunk. 

And that was how I spent the next week.

\--

At some point I actually passed out, instead of living in fuzzy drunk world, and when I woke up I was in my bed. The sheets were clean—I knew I'd puked on 'em at least once—the bedroom was picked up—oh right, I hadn't changed clothes in bastion knew how long—and my head didn't hurt so much.

I needed something. Something—

Vodka. 

I stumbled to the kitchen. The clock read three-oh-eight, and it was dark. Morning. Early, then. Or late. 

I still had alcohol. Huh. The cabinet was actually fully stocked, and I wondered if the kid had been—

He _must_ have been keeping it full. For me? Even though he thought I was being a fucking idiot? He had to have been thinking that, he was a fucking brownnosing asshole, he couldn't have thought I needed it, maybe he wanted me to poison myself—

Maybe he was being fucking _nice—  
_  
I pulled out a fresh handle of vodka and took three swigs from the bottle. It burned going down. 

This wasn't what I needed. I needed loss of control, yeah, but not like this. I needed someone to take it away from me. I needed to fucking forget about bastion-damned Havemercy and my fucking little baby brother and _Have_ \--

The kid. 

I pushed open the kid's door and walked over to his bed, stripped, and crawled in. I felt kind of woozy. I wasn't drunk, not really—a couple of shots wouldn't do that to me—but I wasn't myself. I was—I felt strange and empty. 

"Rook?" the kid asked sleepily. "Rook, what are you—"

"Fuck me," I told him, and kissed him. 

His mouth went soft and slack underneath mine for a moment, and his tongue flickered against my lips, and then he pushed me away. "Rook. We can't. We're—"

"I don't fucking care," I said fiercely. "I don't fucking _care,_ okay? And you're the only person I trust to fuck me and not pay me for it, and I need something and I don't know what and it's not a fuck but that's the closest I can fucking get."

"John," Thom said, and then, " _Rook._ " His hand landed on the back of my head, and tangled in my hair, and then he pushed my head down onto his shoulder and held me there. " When was the last time you got more than an hour of sleep that wasn't passing out??"

The question surprised me, pissed me off. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" I demanded. "Why the fuck do you care?"

The hand in my hair tightened, and I knew he was setting his jaw. "Because you're my brother, even if I've only known for two weeks. And because I love you, more than I should."

The admission was fucking true, was one of those things you knew was true—no way was he lying about that, especially since a statement like that gave me free rein to mock him forfuckingever, and all of a sudden there was heat stinging at the back of my eyes. 

"I loved her," I said into his collarbone. 

"I know." 

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"Think about it later," the kid—Thom, he was Thom, he was Thom and he was Hilary too but this, this was Thom more than anything—said, almost a whisper, and moved his hand to the back of my neck and rubbed, gently. "You should sleep now, okay?"

"I don't have anything without her," I said, and Thom laughed quietly into my hair. 

"You remember," he said after a moment, "when we first slept together? And before we came back here, you asked me if I had anyone, and I said I had you." He shifted us, just a little, so he was almost curled around me. "It goes both ways, Rook. You have me too, if you want. I'm here for you. I'm not going to leave."

"You don't have anywhere else to go," I told him, and stuck my tongue in his ear. 

He squeaked, pushing my head away, just like he had when he was three, and I laughed. It felt real, the first real thing I'd felt in days. "Fucking pussy," I said.

"Probably," he told me, and stroked my hair. "Sleep. Go ahead."

The vodka was just enough to make me sleepy, and my head ached but closing my eyes made it better. The kid smelled nice, like soap and sleep and warm, and I pushed my nose against his collarbone and smelled.

When I woke up, he was still there, and it was light out.

\--

Turned out it was past noon, and Thom had skipped classes to fix a meal and pick up a little. When I stumbled into the kitchen, wearing only a pair of his sweatpants, he was on the phone. 

"…much better, really," he was saying. "I don't think you have to worry too much. He'll be starting bar fights again in no time."

"Damn straight I will," I said, and Thom glanced at me, startled. "Is that Ghislain? Or fucking Adamo?"

"Luvander, actually," Thom said, and then into the phone: "Would you like to talk with him? He's awake."

I heard Luvander's voice on the other end, but not what he was saying, and when Thom sputtered into laughter I immediately got suspicious. 

"Well, I'll let him know your night's still on next week," he said. "I'll talk to you later."

"You're a fucking Cindy, Luvander!" I hollered as Thom hung up, and heard the start of a laugh from the other end of the line as he put it back on the receiver. 

"You seem better this morning," he said, and smiled.

Why hadn't I seen it before? That smile-- _fuck_ , all kind and trusting and unafraid even when he damn well should be—it was all Hilary. 

"I made some macaroni and cheese," Thom said. "And after that you need to shower, or else I'll clear out the liquor cabinet."

I whirled from the pan on the stove and glared at him. He was leaning against the counter next to the refrigerator. "Don't you fucking _dare_ \--" I started and he narrowed his eyes. 

"I'm serious," he said. "You stink. And booze is one thing, but you smell like _puke_ and that's just nasty. When I got up this morning I could smell it all over my shirt. And in my hair."

I smirked. "Bastion fuck, Thom, could you be anymore of a fucking Nellie? Your fucking _hair?"  
_  
"You're the one who braids it three times a week," Thom shot back. "Eat your fucking macaroni."

\--

The afternoon wasn't as good as the morning, when we were watching TV but all I could see no matter where I sat was one of her perches, or the window I always left open for her, or a stray feather that had never been picked up. 

It was worse two nights later, when Thom was at his job, and I opened the freezer to grab a frozen pizza and there she was, in her little box, and all of a sudden all I could think was how miserable I was after the war, slutting around and even after I won the lottery, alone except for the occasional whore and the other Airmen, all of us fucking miserable anyway, and what the fuck was I supposed to do now? 

I was still standing there two hours later when Thom got home. He stood in the doorway and shouted my name till I started and pulled a knife, hurling it into the wall where his head would have been if he hadn't've ducked. 

"I saw that one coming," he said dryly, and then his face grew concerned. "Are you all right? I've been home for twenty minutes and you've been like that the whole time."

I stared back down at the box, and came to a realization. 

"I need to bury her," I said, and marched over to the phone and called directory assistance. 

\--

I had to wait til the stone I ordered from the gravestone guys came in—it was little but made of the most expensive fucking rock there was. What else was I supposed to do with that fucking money except waste it?

There was a pet cemetery near my apartment, but fuck if Have was going there. That was fucking ridiculous—I'd seen some rich bastards having a whole fucking _funeral_ for their dog once, complete with a hearse and a fucking Sister and everything. 

No, I buried her in one of the clearings in the park we liked—off the trail, right near the sign that said to keep on the fucking trail. Thom helped me dig, and then placed a hand on the lid of the box and stood and left, leaving me along with it. With her. With Havemercy. 

"You were the best thing that ever happened to me, you know that?" I told her, hugging the box gently. "You were." 

I didn't know what the fuck else to say after that, what else I could say that wouldn't sound worthless, and so I placed her in the ground and I covered her up and I put the little stone I'd ordered on top of the dirt. The stone said, _Havemercy_ and the years she'd lived, and underneath it said, _you common little fucker_ , her very favorite insult, and that was it. 

I came back to the trail, and Thom was standing there, watching me careful-like. 

"Bastion _fuck_ ," I said, "It's not like I'm out to stab you or anything. I'm not fucking insane."

He smiled, a little wry quirk of his lips. "No, you're insane, all right, but you've been insane for as long as I've known you and probably longer, so that's not about to change. I was—I was just thinking." 

I looked at him, waiting. 

He shook his head. "It's nothing, yet. Maybe later."

I narrowed my eyes. "You _better_ fucking tell me later."

"I will," he said, but didn't meet my eyes. "Let's go get meat buns, all right?"

\--

It felt wrong to sit at those tables without Have, so we went to a bench by one of the playgrounds instead. Glaring at the kids felt strange without Have, but Thom gave me disapproving looks instead—it wasn't the same, but I guessed it was okay. 

His disapproving look was like our mother's, and I wondered, as often as I'd seen that fucking look, how I hadn't noticed. How I hadn't thought, or said—

It never fucking occurred to me, though, that Hilary was alive. 

"We're the only ones who know," Thom said, and I looked at him. "Your friends know we—well, that we—" He glanced at the kids on the swings. 

"That we fuck?" I asked, a little loudly, grinning like a madman. One of the mothers on a nearby bench gasped in horror. Thom flushed. 

Thom looked down. "Yeah. And if we told them—if we told even Cook or Isobel"—the cleaning lady—"they would—well, they would react a lot like we did. But they'd feel pity, too."

Like me, like any good Mollyrat, Thom hated getting pityed. 

"It's been almost seventeen years," he continued, his jaw set, not looking at me. "Telling everyone—is there really a point to it?"

I hadn't even thought of what I was going to say, if anyone was going to know. But Thom was right—to put it out in the open, 'specially after we'd been screwing for three months, would be…a bad fucking idea, was the best way I could put it.

"What are you saying?" I asked. "No, I fucking _know_ what you're saying. I mean, what's your fucking point?"

He leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. A firm kiss, but short, and then he pulled away. 

"I don't know about you," Thom said quietly, "but I'm not standing on the moral high ground. As much as I'd like to say that it'll change, I'm still a bit of a Mollyrat. I probably always will be." He took a breath. 

"Before—before Have got sick, I was the happiest I've been…maybe ever. I know it won't—it _can't_ \--be the same; too many variables have been changed, but I want to be able to eat pizza on the floor half-naked with you and get worked up over hockey games and drink too much liquor."

"No such thing," I muttered, and he smiled.

"Like that." His smile turned sad, and he added, "And I've already told you I love you more than I should. That's been the case since before I knew we were siblings, and it's only worse now." He looked over at me. "I realize, of course, that all of this is setting me up for heartbreak. And I weighed the options and I decided that I don't care."

I thought about Hilary, how much I had fucking loved that boy, how I loved him still even if I hardly knew him, just because he was Hilary. And he still trusted me—bastion knows why—and he still smiled at me, and he still loved me, just like he had when he was a bit, and maybe more than that. 

Hilary was the one thing I'd ever loved before Have, and I loved Have so very very much but I had loved Hilary desperately, passionately, little face tucked under my chin when we slept, little hands fisted in my dirty shirt, _I'm never gonna let_ anything _happen to you, you're the only good thing our parents ever made_ \--and when I looked at Thom, it bubbled inside me, a little bit, that desperate love, under all the years and the war and the pain. I had felt it every day since I started living again, felt it and felt disgusting, because it was my brother and when I remembered Hilary's face, smiling at me sleepy in the morning, Thom's face appeared, sated and happy, draped across the unmade bed after he'd shoved me in the wet spot, the prick. It was still his mouth wrapped around my cock that I jerked off to in the shower, turning the water up when I was done so it was almost unbearably hot because he was my _brother_ \--my bastion-damned brother and I loved him more than anything else but I wanted him too. You don't love someone like that and want them too where I'm from, not if you wanted to stay alive and be as happy as you could. 

But Thom knew that as well as I did and loved me anyway, he said, and it wasn't Hilary I wanted, it was Thom, and they were the same person but two different ideas and I loved them both.

There was no way this could work if I didn't love them both. 

I looked at him. He was watching, his green eyes waiting. His glasses were still broken, tape holding the bridge together. Why hadn't he ever fucking fixed them? I'd pretty much gave him free rein to go do whatever the fuck he wanted with the money that I had no fucking clue what I was supposed to do with. 

I kissed him. Not short like he'd done me, but long and deep and lots of tongue, one hand on the back of his head and the other between his shoulder blades, keeping him close. He melted almost right away, cupping my face, and I smiled into his mouth when I heard the mother on the bench next to us gasp again. I didn't pull away until he was panting, his lips red and swollen and wet, a string of spit connecting our mouths for a moment.

"Fine," I said, "But I'm getting you a new pair of specs." 

\--

He'd refused the glasses, because I would break them. He pointed to another spot, on the temple, taped up where I'd pulled them off and thrown them on the ground one night. I didn't remember that. 

"You were too busy getting a blowjob," Thom said, and lifted an eyebrow. 

"And fuck you too," I told him. 

He laughed. 

"You know what?" I told him. "Too fucking bad what you want or don't, we're going to get you a new pair of glasses so you don't look like an idiot at the 'Versity and ruin my good name—"he snorted—"and then we're going to go home and fuck. It's been two weeks since I've gotten laid."

He went red and looked away, and when he looked back at me, under his lashes, it was like he was looking forward to it too. 

"I haven't had a checkup in a long time," he said, the tiny smile on his face turning sly. "It might be a while."

"I fucking hate you," I said, with very little anger. "You trying to make my life more fucking miserable?"

That sly smile widened. "I make your life interesting," he said, and pickpocketed my cell phone to call a doctor. 

\--

It was nearly three hours later when we finally got into the elevator, and before I could do anything he had hit the emergency stop button, dropped the plastic bag from the eye doctor's, and enveloped me in a hug so tight I thought he might crack one of my ribs. 

"What the fu—"

"Shut up," Thom said. "We can have sex later. Right now I'm going to hug you." He buried his face in my shoulder. "You're going to have to fucking deal with it, all right?" He inhaled, and I felt his mouth turn up through my t-shirt. "You smell nice. Like a home."

Balfour said that the apartment smelled like commercial cleaning products, whiskey, and burnt pizza. I couldn't smell my own damn house, and Balfour was usually full of shit, but it honestly seemed pretty valid, and if that was Thom's idea of home, it was a pretty fucking weird one, honestly. 

"Like home," I said. "You're fucking kidding."

His shoulders shook with laughing. "Why would I kid?" he asked, his voice muffled. "It's a good smell. Smells like you."

"Bastion fucking fuck," I said, "What on earth did I do to have a wimpy cunt for a little brother?"

"You were an asshole," he said, turning his face into my neck and hugging me tighter. "Now shut up and hug back or you won't ever get a blowjob again."

"That's an empty promise and you're full of shit," I told him, but I hugged him back anyway, my face next to his ear, his hair messy from the wind and smelling like shampoo and ink. 

Bastion, I was turning into a Cindy. 

And I didn't even fucking care. And I didn't care that I didn't fucking care, because I had my brother and I had Thom and I had everything I could possibly have, now that Have was somewhere else. 

But even so, I knew where she was, and I remembered her, and she had made my life the best fucking thing ever, and even if she was gone she wasn't going to stop doing that, 'cause she'd found Thom, and she'd taught me how to love something, even if neither of us would have ever called it that. 

So I let Thom hug me, and I hugged him back, and when he finally loosened his hold I said, "I hope you know I'm never gonna let you do that again. Ever."

He smiled, satisfied and sated in a way that had nothing to do with fucking, and said, "I know," kind of dreamily, and tangled his hand in my hair and kissed me.

Well, _final-fucking-ly.  
_  
\--

We stumbled into the apartment, kissing. He kicked off his shoes in the entryway, his hands at my fly right away, unzipping and shoving down and pushing his hands up my shirt and making little soft desperate hungry noises in my mouth and it had been three whole weeks since I had kissed him like this and I hadn't ever missed anyone's mouth like I'd fucking missed his. 

Somehow, it wasn't until that moment that I realized I was well and truly fucked. 

I pulled away and looked at him for a long moment. 

He blinked back at me from behind his broken specs. "What. Seriously? _Seriously,_ Rook?" 

Fuck. Who was I to turn down willing, fantastic, free sex with no consequences and little to no chance of pain?

Well, shit happened every day, but Thom was a Mollyrat, and that was what we were fucking good at, staying alive even thought the shit happened. And he wasn't about to leave anytime soon. If anything, I'd get bored of him. Completely painless, for me, at least. 

But it didn't seem like that would happen anything soon, either, though. 

Well, then. 

"Nothing," I said, and kissed him again, pushing him up against the wall so hard he went up on his tiptoes. He was still too skinny and light as fuck, prolly always would be given the fact that he inhaled whole pizzas without blinking and was still this fucking skinny, but he was healthy too and, more importantly, he was wrapping his legs around my waist and _grinding_ and making filthy, dirty, gasping fuck sounds while I sucked hard on his throat and collarbone and ear. He was going to have hickeys everyfuckingwhere, and everyone in class the next morning would know he'd been fucked hard, and even if they didn't know who it was who was doing the fucking, it was a satisfying thought. 

I grinned and bit down on his earlobe, and he bucked against me. _"Fuck,_ " he said and grabbed my hair. "Fuck, come here, Rook. _Please._ "

I kissed him again, 'cause he asked nice. 

He pulled away again and this time stripped my shirt clean off, old army t-shirt tearing a little in the process. 

 

"Fuck this," I said, and pulled away, dragging him to my room and throwing him on the bed, before kicking off my boots and shucking my pants and crawling on top of him, pushing his own pants off and scraping my nails on his hipbones. He arched and moaned and bared his throat, red and purpling already, and the line of his jugular was enough to make me want more, want the taste of his skin in my mouth. 

_He's your brother,_ something little in me said, and I didn't give a fucking damn. 

I kissed him again, and he bit at my lip and rolled us over, sudden and quick and a surprise. "Fuck," I said, and he grinned down at me and reached for the nightstand drawer, fishing through all the shit I'd shoved in there for the lube, pulling it out and pouring it into his hands. 

"Bastion," I said, "We don't need that much."

"I could go slowly," he told me, reaching behind himself and gasping as he fucked himself on one finger, two, and then three as my own hand joined his, twisting and curling inside him to hit all the spots that made him shudder and gasp. "I thought you would appreciate expediency."

"What does that even fucking _mean,_ " I muttered, and he laughed, breathless and gaspy, and pulled off our fingers and slid down onto my cock. 

He made a sound like he'd stopped breathing for a moment, and went so still I half-wondered if he'd just fucking died, and so the harsh breaths had to be mine, hitching at the end, sounds I had never heard myself make even when the fucking Ke-Han were torturing me. 

And then he blinked, and sunk down all the way, and shuddered, and when he opened his eyes they were already all blissed-out and happy and he said, "Missed this."

"You're such a Nellie," I told him, and he laughed and started to move and reached for his dick, and in a fit of genius I smacked his hand away, grabbing his wrists. "You don't get that," I said, and bared my teeth up at him. "You are going to have to deal."

He looked at me, suddenly desperate behind the happy in his eyes, and I smiled at his cock, flushed red and almost angry and leaking steadily and he was at his best here, needing and not getting. "You're joking, rig—" he began, his voice cutting off into a moan when I pushed my hips up to meet him and laughed at him, low and hoarse. 

"More," he said, his voice breaking, and then: "Faster, Rook, _please_ \--"

I grinned and slowed down, relishing the slide of my dick into him and the pull out and he whimpered, voiceless but begging anyway, and it was just fucking great, him wanting but not having, and me getting everything I fucking needed at that fucking perfect moment. 

And, like he sometimes did, he came all of a sudden all over my stomach without even touching his cock, and then he slumped forward and lay gasping and wore-out on my chest. 

"Fuck you," I said. "You're fucking kidding me."

He lifted his head slowly and the smile on his face was satisfied but also hungry. "Give me ten minutes," he said, "and don't you say shit about my stamina, you old man."

I opened my mouth to protest but he'd already slid down my stomach, smearing his come all over us, and was sucking my dick like it was his favorite thing in the world. 

"I'm not old," I said, but it was kind of raw and crackly and not very convincing, even if it _was_ the truth.

He pulled up, my cock sliding out of his mouth with a wet, obscene pop, and smiled. "We have all night," he said, almost out of the blue but not quite, and went back to town. 

We did have all night. And I was damn well going to take fucking advantage of that. 

\--

We were naked and panting on the bed; Thom'd cleaned up with a pillowcase and grabbed the comforter from where it had slid to the floor with the rest of the sheets and pulled it up over us, and when I turned to face him he was watching me, hands curled next to his head, eyes big and soft like a kid's. 

"Fucking what?" I asked, and he smiled, real quiet-like. 

"I'm just glad I found you again," he said. 

I blinked. "Bastion _fuck_ ," I said after a moment, "you are _such_ a fucking pussy." 

His smile widened, and one of his hands moved from next to his head to cover mine on the mattress. He didn't take it and he didn't lace our fingers together, he just touched it, and I thought about sitting with him and Have while he drew at the tables by the meat-bun stand, and I thought about Hilary, and I thought about him holding the shovel we'd bought, wiping a smudge of dirt off his face ('cept his hand left more dirt there instead), and then leaving me and Have alone, knowing exactly what I needed, and I thought about waking up to find him sitting next to the bed, drawing, but he never was drawing me naked or anything, it was always my hands or my feet hanging off the bed or my hair tangled on the pillow—he never let me look at his sketchbook, but I knew where he hid his fucking secrets. Kid'd gotten soft at the 'Versity; under the mattress was the worst fucking place to hide shit. 

I turned my hand over, so our palms touched. "Pussy," I told him again, just for good measure, and then: "Go to sleep, you've got fucking class in the morning."

He laughed, quiet, and closed his eyes, and his breathing evened out in minutes, and I watched him sleep for a little while, his hand curled into a fist on my open palm. 

It might have made me a fucking Cindy, so I wasn't ever going to say it, but I was glad I'd found him too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> story notes:
> 
> 1) on Havemercy and Rook talking. I wanted to maintain their relationship as much as I could given the fact that Havemercy is no longer a talking dragon. In the end, I ended up not being able to convey things I wanted without Havemercy actually having some semblance of a voice. However, I don't want to imply that Havemercy is a special hawk or that Rook talks to animals. So it's like this: Havemercy is just abnormally smart for a bird, and Rook infers what she says. But his inferences are pretty much spot-on. Does that make sense? 
> 
> 2) On Thom and Rook's relationship. They get along a lot better here than they do in _Havemercy_ , and even in _Dragonsoul_. There are a couple reasons for this: one, that I feel Thom and Rook's relationship would have been drastically better had they simply met one day on the street or something—that is to say, Thom's being there as sensitivity trainer automatically made them more antagonistic towards each other. The second reason has to do with Thom's characterization as well—he is four years younger here than he is in _Havemercy_ , and so he's four years closer to living in Molly. Thus he's a) not as mature as he is in the actual book, and b) more rough-around-the-edges. I'd presume it took him a long time to be able to be fully accepted by rich aristocratic students, and while he might have grown out of it by the time he starts training the Airmen, I don't think he would have while he was still an undergrad. ☺

**Author's Note:**

> 1) on Havemercy and Rook talking. I wanted to maintain their relationship as much as I could given the fact that Havemercy is no longer a talking dragon. In the end, I ended up not being able to convey things I wanted without Havemercy actually having some semblance of a voice. However, I don't want to imply that Havemercy is a special hawk or that Rook talks to animals. It's probably somewhere between "weird, beautiful telepathic soulbond between a human and a hawk" and Have being extra smart and Rook extra intuitive at interpreting her.   
> 2) On Thom and Rook's relationship. They get along a lot better here than they do in Havemercy, and even in Dragonsoul. There are a couple reasons for this: one, that I feel Thom and Rook's relationship would have been drastically better had they simply met one day on the street or something—that is to say, Thom's being there as sensitivity trainer automatically made them more antagonistic towards each other. The second reason has to do with Thom's characterization as well—he is four years younger here than he is in Havemercy, and so he's four years closer to living in Molly. Thus he's a) not as mature as he is in the actual book, and b) more rough-around-the-edges. I'd presume it took him a long time to be able to be fully accepted by rich aristocratic students, and while he might have grown out of it by the time he starts training the Airmen, I don't think he would have while he was still an undergrad. ☺


End file.
